L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Mediterraneo (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Mediterraneo (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:11 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata invite you on a musical cruise that will take you from Portugal to Turkey, following the coasts of Spain, Catalonia, Greece and Italy, caressed by the rocking of the waves and the captivating dialogue between traditional plucked instruments of the Mediterranean region – the qanun, saz, Greek lyre and lavta, the oud and Portuguese guitar – and the Baroque strings of L’Arpeggiata.

Mediterraneo is a musical exploration of the Mediterranean Sea. It features the fabulous voices of Misia, Nuria Rial, Vincenzo Capezzuto, Raquel Andueza and Katerina Papadopoulou who perform traditional tarantellas, sung in Greek. Those folk pieces were a custom in the Baroque era in the Greek-Albanian villages of Calabria. Join Christina Pluhar on this unique musical odyssey.

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L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Mediterraneo (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Mediterraneo (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:11 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EMI Records Ltd./Virgin Classics

Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata invite you on a musical cruise that will take you from Portugal to Turkey, following the coasts of Spain, Catalonia, Greece and Italy, caressed by the rocking of the waves and the captivating dialogue between traditional plucked instruments of the Mediterranean region – the qanun, saz, Greek lyre and lavta, the oud and Portuguese guitar – and the Baroque strings of L’Arpeggiata.

Mediterraneo is a musical exploration of the Mediterranean Sea. It features the fabulous voices of Misia, Nuria Rial, Vincenzo Capezzuto, Raquel Andueza and Katerina Papadopoulou who perform traditional tarantellas, sung in Greek. Those folk pieces were a custom in the Baroque era in the Greek-Albanian villages of Calabria. Join Christina Pluhar on this unique musical odyssey.

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Christina Pluhar, L’Arpeggiata, Philippe Jaroussky – Passacalle de la Follie (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Christina Pluhar, L’Arpeggiata, Philippe Jaroussky – Passacalle de la Follie (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:55 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

With their album Passacalle de la Follie, star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata immerse themselves in the French court music of the 17th century and give it drive and new life. The dream team Jaroussky, Pluhar and ensemble has been around for 15 years with successful albums, joint concerts, and consistently enthusiastic audience responses. On this album, Jaroussky interprets the gallant love poems, which often hide erotic allusions behind their verses inspired by Ovid. The Air de Cour as court music and love poetry of the time, in its high artistic flowering, formed a counterweight to the political tensions in Baroque France. While wars and intrigues determined everyday life, the royal court, thanks to refined and refined arts, transported the court nobility to an island of the blissful. The musical works of the composers of the French royal court, including airs by Pierre Guédron, Antoine Boësset and Michel Lambert Boësset and Michel Lambert.

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Christina Pluhar – Rossi: La lyra d’Orfeo & Arpa Davidica (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Christina Pluhar – Rossi: La lyra d’Orfeo & Arpa Davidica (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:39:34 minutes | 3,94 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics

Christina Pluhar has long been interested in the vocal music of the 17th century, in particular that of composer Luigi Rossi born around 1597 in the beautiful province of Puglia. He was the titular composer to the Medicis in Florence before taking a job with Cardinal Barberini in Rome. In France, Cardinal Mazarin commissioned him to produce the first Italian opera written specifically for the French court. In a manner of speaking, Rossi is at the root of the productions that another Italian, Lully, would later write for Louis XIV.

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Christina Pluhar – Music for a While – Improvisations on Purcell (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Christina Pluhar – Music for a While – Improvisations on Purcell (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:16:19 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics International

After the intoxicating heat of Mediterraneo, released in 2013, Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata – again in the company of countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, soprano Raquel Andueza and alto singer Vincenzo Capezzuto – now head to the cooler climes of England with Music for a while, an album based on the haunting, graceful and sometimes deeply moving music of Henry Purcell.

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Christina Pluhar – Los Pajaros Perdidos (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Christina Pluhar – Los Pajaros Perdidos (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:15:39 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Since founding L’Arpeggiata in 2000 as an early music ensemble, Christina Pluhar has taken it in some directions not usually associated with the rarified world of historically informed performance practice, particularly into the traditions of Southern European folk music and jazz. In Los Pájaros Perdidos: The South American Project, she ventures even further afield into the world of modern Latin American popular song and folk song. She argues persuasively that the Renaissance and Baroque instruments the Spanish introduced to the New World in the 16th and 17th century remained essentially the same, while back in Europe they developed in entirely new directions so that the difference between the sound of an early music ensemble and a popular South American instrumental group is less significant than one might expect. Based on the sound of this album, she seems to be right. She uses both European and Latin American instruments and although the results are clearly not exactly the same as they would be with either group on its own, they’re awfully close, certainly close enough to make the project entirely persuasive. Each of the songs or instrumentals uses instruments from both worlds and the blend is often magical. The addition of the European psaltery and distinctive American percussion in particular expand the traditional sound of either culture. The singers are all members of L’Arpeggiata and succeed in varying degrees in hitting the swing of the Latin rhythms. Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky is perhaps the least effective, although his singing is consistently beautiful. It’s only in contrast to Lucilla Galeazzi, Luciana Mancini, Vincenzo Capezzuto, and Raquel Andueza, who sound like they have this idiom in their blood, that Jaroussky sounds less that fully effective. Mancini is especially impressive; her gutsy alto is ideally suited to fiery, passionate songs like Montilla, while Capezzuto shines in the sunnier songs, and Galeazzi and Andueza excel in the languid, achingly poignant ballads. Andueza’s yearning Besame mucho is one of the highlights of the album. L’Arpeggiata and the quartet of Latin American instruments headed by Quito Gato play their hearts out. Virgin Classics’ sound is immaculate, finely detailed, and warmly intimate. Highly recommended.

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Christina Pluhar, L’Arpeggiata – Handel Goes Wild (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Christina Pluhar, L’Arpeggiata – Handel Goes Wild (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:30 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

“Handel goes wild”, that’s putting it mildly: in Christina Pluhar’s album, he goes wild to quite some extremes! Indeed the Austrian harpist, theorbist, and lute player picked a handful of Handel’s (and a bit of Vivaldi’s) arias, concerto movements and overtures, and put them not only in the hands of baroque musicians of the L’Arpeggiata Ensemble, but also of half a dozen jazz musicians of various styles. The result is a reinterpretation, in turn gypsy, Klezmer, salsa, New Orleans jazz, lounge, blues and so on, that everyone can either love or hate depending on their own degree of adaptability. Undeniably using a clarinet and piano in this language can be confusing for some… But Pluhar’s approach is simple: Handel himself reused, reshaped, tinkered, disguised, ransacked and rewrote, using both the works of other composers and his own, always with his own personal approach and the most immediate style of his time. So why not do the same nowadays?! In any case, this mixture of baroque instruments and voices with 20th-century instruments and genres is breathtaking. The artists invited include clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi, pianist Francesco Turrisi and bass player Boris Schmidt in the field of jazz, but also countertenor Valer Barna-Sabadus and soprano Nuria Rial.

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Christina Pluhar – Himmelsmusik (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Christina Pluhar – Himmelsmusik (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:30 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Himmelsmusik (‘heavenly music’), a programme of sacred songs and cantatas by German composers of the 17th century, presents a striking contrast with the previous Erato album from Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata: Händel Goes Wild.

Himmelsmusik sees Pluhar taking a more sober and traditionally scholarly approach. She and L’Arpeggiata are joined by star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and the distinguished Belgian soprano Céline Scheen in a programme that includes the celebrated lamento ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte’ by Johann Christoph Bach (born over 40 years before his relative Johann Sebastian), Heinrich Schütz’s ‘Erbarm Dich mein, o Herre Gott’ and prompts discovery of works by such lesser-known figures as Johann Theile, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, Christian Ritter and Franz Tunder. An instrumental piece by the Verona-born Antonio Bertali highlights the influence of Italian music on German composers of the time.

In an interview with the Bremen-based newspaper Weser-Kurier, Christina Pluhar provided some insights into the balance she strikes in her music-making with L’Arpeggiata.

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Christina Pluhar – Alla Napoletana (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Christina Pluhar – Alla Napoletana (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:44:21 minutes | 1,98 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Christina Pluhar, L’Arpeggiata and eight guest singers explore the musical highways and byways of Naples, the most intoxicating and idiosyncratic of Italy’s large cities. Alla Napoletana, a double album, expresses the city’s mercurial personality in music from the 17th to the 20th centuries, embracing the operatic style of the so-called Neapolitan School, which rose to prominence in the late 1700s, and popular songs and dances. Among them are several examples of the tarantella, the lively, sometimes frenzied dance that epitomises southern Italy.

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L’ Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Francesco Cavalli – L’amore innamorato (2015) DSF DSD64

L’ Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Francesco Cavalli – L’amore innamorato (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:52 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Digital Booklet | Label: Warner Classics/Erato

“Soloists Nuria Rial and Hana Blažiková are superb and the whole enterprise glows with commitment and panache.” ~Classical Music

“Up to 10 vivacious continuo pluckers generate lilting energy that transports listeners on an imaginative whistle-stop tour of Cavalli’s operas…the singing is frequently sensational and L’Arpeggiata’s colourful playing conjures alluring fantasy” ~Gramophone

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L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Pluhar: Orfeo Chamán (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar – Pluhar: Orfeo Chamán (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:23 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics

A unique retelling of the Orpheus myth drawing on Baroque music and folksongs from South America to Sicily, with a real-life Orfeo – the blind Argentinean singer-guitarist Nahuel Pennisi – in the title role. The resulting opera composed and arranged by Christina Pluhar reveals the mysterious shamanic side of the legendary musician who ventures into the underworld for love.

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